For inform­a­tion

Title: Inform­a­tion requests and com­plaints update Pre­pared by: Paul Dav­is­on, Inform­a­tion Manager

Pur­pose

This paper provides an update on the num­ber of inform­a­tion requests, and key per­form­ance meas­ures in meet­ing them, under Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act (FOISA)/ Envir­on­ment­al Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions (EIR) and data pro­tec­tion arrange­ments, provid­ing an update for the first half of fin­an­cial year ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆. The paper also describes num­bers and out­comes of form­al com­plaints to the Park Authority.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note activ­ity in this area and Park Author­ity per­form­ance, b) Com­ment on breadth and depth of report­ing for future updates.

Activ­ity

Free­dom of Information

1. As a pub­lic body, CNPA is sub­ject to stat­utory require­ments under the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act (FOISA) and also the Envir­on­ment­al Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions (EIR). This paper provides an update on the num­ber of inform­a­tion requests under these pro­vi­sions received in the last four fin­an­cial years. Pre­vi­ous years inform­a­tion is provided for bench­mark­ing pur­poses. All fig­ures relate to the time peri­od in which the request was first received.
2. In hand­ling inform­a­tion requests, it is for the Park Author­ity to determ­ine wheth­er a request should be dealt with under the pro­vi­sions of either FOISA or EIR, or a sub­ject access request fall­ing sep­ar­ately under the pro­vi­sions of data pro­tec­tion legis­la­tion. Hand­ling of inform­a­tion requests under FOISA and EIR var­ies slightly in terms of poten­tial exemp­tions for release of inform­a­tion and con­sid­er­a­tion of the wider pub­lic interest in decid­ing wheth­er to release or with­hold inform­a­tion. The clas­si­fic­a­tion of an inform­a­tion request could itself be a point of chal­lenge by a requester and will be tested dur­ing any request for intern­al review of the Park Authority’s hand­ling of an inform­a­tion request, and by the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er should a mat­ter be referred to the Commission.

Total request num­bers in ²⁵⁄₂₆ to date has increased, and if the trend con­tin­ues is pre­dicted to be around 60 total for the year, high­er than pre­vi­ous years.

Table 1: Num­ber of FOISA/ EIR Requests Received, ²¹⁄₂₂ to date

Request Type	FY 21⁄22	FY 22⁄23	FY 23⁄24	FY 24⁄25	FY 25⁄26 Q1 & Q2
FOISA	25	20	42	28	21
EIR	17	8	4	17	9
FOISA/EIR	-	1	-	-	-
Total	42	29	46	45	30
% FOISA	60%	69%	91%	62%	70%

1. The most rel­ev­ant per­form­ance meas­ure for all requests is the pro­por­tion of requests met with­in stat­utory times­cales (which may vary depend­ing on the nature of the request). Park Author­ity per­form­ance in respond­ing to all requests is gen­er­ally very good and has been at or above 95% over the last 4 years. In the latest half-year with an increase in requests of great­er com­plex­ity, per­form­ance has dipped slightly to 89%, although this only involves three requests, and late­ness is gen­er­ally a few days only.
2. Bench­mark­ing is pos­sible via the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er stat­ist­ics portal¹ which com­piles and pub­lishes stat­ist­ics for all bod­ies sub­ject to the require­ments. This reports an over­all per­form­ance (all bod­ies) of 87% and 91% over the last 4 repor­ted quar­ters for FOI and EIR responses respect­ively. For the ​“Oth­er” sec­tor­al group in which the Park Author­ity resides, those fig­ures are 95% and 96%.
3. The num­ber of intern­al review requests remains very low, with two each in ²³⁄₂₄, ²⁴⁄₂₅ and this year to date. No refer­rals to the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er have occurred since FY ²⁰⁄₂₁. Fig­ures are sum­mar­ised in Table 2.
4. Updated guid­ance to staff and recent refresh­er train­ing is aimed at main­tain­ing and improv­ing FOI/EIR per­form­ance and the high levels of trans­par­ency that the Park Author­ity exhibits.

¹ FOI and EIRs stat­ist­ics | Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Commissioner

Table 2: Inform­a­tion requests per­form­ance over­view, ²¹⁄₂₂ to date

All FOI/EIR Requests	FY 21⁄22	FY 22⁄23	FY 23⁄24	FY 24⁄25	FY 25⁄26 Q1&Q2
Met with­in Stat­utory Timescales	95%	97%	98%	100%	89%
Intern­al Review Requests	2	1	2	2	2
Refer­ral to Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Commissioner	0	0	0	0	0

1. The latest dis­tri­bu­tion of requests across the organ­isa­tion is shown in Fig­ure 1. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­tin­ues to encom­pass the largest num­ber and includes all cor­por­ate requests that include areas such as fin­ance, grants, gov­ernance, pro­cure­ment, HR, ICT and inform­a­tion man­age­ment, amongst oth­ers. Oth­er parts of the organ­isa­tion received a sim­il­ar num­ber of requests. Requests vary sig­ni­fic­antly in breadth and com­plex­ity. Request top­ics (and organ­isa­tion areas provid­ing inform­a­tion) are shown in Annex 1 for all requests received to date in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

Fig­ure 1: Requests by Ser­vice Area, ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Q1 & Q2

(Image of a pie chart show­ing the fol­low­ing data points: Cor­por­ate Ser­vices: 22, Con­ser­va­tion & Nature: 5, Plan­ning & Place: 4, Vis­it­or Services/​Access: 4, Land Man­age­ment: 4, Com­mu­nic­a­tions: 2)

1. The cat­egor­ised type of requesters are set out in Table 3 for the first time, for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Q1 & Q2. Indi­vidu­al mem­bers of the pub­lic com­prise around half of requesters, with lob­by­ing groups/​indi­vidu­als and polit­ic­al or com­mer­cial organ­isa­tions com­pris­ing most of the remainder. Note that there is no requirement

Table 3: Pro­por­tion of requests received by requester type, FY ²⁵⁄₂₆ Q1&Q2

Requester type	Pro­por­tion
Indi­vidu­al	48%
Lobby/​pres­sure group	19%
Polit­ic­al	16%
Com­mer­cial	10%
Oth­er organisations	3%
Media	3%

Sub­ject Access Requests

1. Under data pro­tec­tion legis­la­tion, indi­vidu­als have the right to request inform­a­tion held about them by an organ­isa­tion, a pro­cess known as a sub­ject access request (SAR). The Park Author­ity gen­er­ally receives very few SARs com­pared to oth­er pub­lic bod­ies; it gen­er­ally holds and pro­cesses rel­at­ively little per­son­al data oth­er than the min­im­um it requires to ful­fil its stat­utory duties and oth­er activ­it­ies effectively.
2. There have been no sub­ject access requests to date in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

Com­plaints

1. The Park Author­ity has a form­al com­plaint hand­ling pro­cess. Where pos­sible staff are encour­aged to resolve more straight­for­ward com­plaints dir­ectly with­in 5 work­ing days (known as Stage 1 – front­line res­ol­u­tion). Where a com­plain­ant remains dis­sat­is­fied or the issue is more com­plex, a com­plaint is logged for a Stage 2 invest­ig­a­tion and response, gen­er­ally by a seni­or mem­ber of staff. The total num­ber of com­plaints logged is shown in Table 4, as well as a sum­mary of top­ics. The num­ber of Stage 2 com­plaints has reduced sig­ni­fic­antly, with only one so far this fin­an­cial year.

Table 4: Com­plaints over­view, ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ and ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅

	2023⁄24	2024⁄25	2025⁄26 Q1 & Q2
Num­ber of complaints	10	9	1
Main top­ic areas of com­plaints (may be assigned against mul­tiple categories)	Plan­ning	8
	Con­ser­va­tion	4
	Vis­it­or Services/​Access	4
	Cor­por­ate Services	2
	Trans­port & travel	1
	Land man­age­ment	1

Annex 1: Top­ics of FOI and EIR requests received ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Q1 and Q2.

Organ­isa­tion area(s)	Top­ic
Vis­it­or Services	Min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tion on rail­way cross­ings and core paths
Conservation/​Nature, Land Management	Twin­flower at Cre­ag Bheithe Bheag
Conservation/​Nature	Beaver com­plaints and compensation
Vis­it­or Services	Core paths
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	Recruit­ment
Vis­it­or Services	Min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tion on rail­way cross­ings and core paths
Plan­ning, Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	Vari­ous staff­ing and governance
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR, Comms	Cit­izen Engage­ment Platforms
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Other	Cus­tom­er ser­vice per­form­ance levels
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	LGBT Youth Scotland
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	Recruit­ment
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Vari­ous expenditure
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Fin­ance, Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Other	Grants
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR, Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Budget and Staff
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices IT/​Info	IT Ser­vices / Devices
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Fin­ance, Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	Seni­or staff pay
Land Man­age­ment	Deer man­age­ment information
Conservation/​Nature	Coire na Ciste — fund­ing and decision-making
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Pay­ments over 25k
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Leg­al services
Plan­ning	Lis­ted buildings
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Fin­ance, Planning	Leg­al expenses & staff time
Conservation/​Nature, Land Management	Plant­ing of Coire na Ciste
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices IT/​Info	Print and ICT Procurement
Land Man­age­ment	Muir­burn, burn­ing plans and the East Cairngorms Moor­land Partnership
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Other	Energy Con­tracts and Billing
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices HR	Staff net­works
Plan­ning	Lis­ted build­ings, build­ing derel­ic­tion and fire
Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Late pay­ments
Conservation/​Nature, Comms, Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Finance	Beaver pro­ject costs and media